Philosophy Now Forum

Compatibilism is sophist bullshit. But then I am not a compatibilist thank God.

Yeah, I can understand the mix-up. The terminology here is really confusing. "Compatibilism" as it is properly defined in theology or philosophy is not the belief that Determinism and Free Will are "compatible" to an equal degree

Equal degree? And how exactly do you propose we measure that degree? Just to put things into perspective, nothing else we so far know in the universe has the free will to act the way it wants. Only US on our little planet. I'm not even close to claiming that there is not any other life in the WHOLE universe, just that as far as we're aware of we're the only intelligent beings.

And even us humans are free only to a certain degree and some of our actions are determined to happen - f.e. if we want to survive we'll provide nutrition for our body. It's our choice WHEN (again, not even that is completely our choice since we can't choose when it's too late and we're dead) and we can choose WHAT to eat (and again, even that is not completely our choice cause we can't eat things that our body can't digest and we can only eat food that we possess if we don't want to steal.

contradiction.

What contradiction?

I agree with you: there are some things we can safely say are Determined, but also others that we can say are genuinely "free." But we're not "Compatibilists," either of us.

Speaking about contradictions...

Seriously though, I'd love an elaboration on that. That ought to be good

Compatibilism is sophist bullshit. But then I am not a compatibilist thank God.

Are you just going to stay at assertions or are you going to at least try to argument your position?

took more than 24 hours to get anyone's attention, sorry everyone was basically pretty much ignoring everyone who they weren't personally speaking to, on many threads, hey pay attention?

Which as far as it goes for me is fine, as I am new and thus untried you don't yet have the usual grudges against me, and have not formulated any walls or biases so I am like a cracker with no cheese on it, far from tempting. But yeah I will, when I have time. Atm I am in and out. So no dice.

I have argued my points on other threads, but this one seems more of a wall of opinion style, talk at someone until you get bored, ah you know how it goes. So good posts often go unnoticed on other threads while you are self righteously asserting you are right and they are wrong because of and for no other reason, your opinion.


O and good posts wise I haven't made any yet, but some have...

Carry on guys my objections aside it is interesting, I will have time soon enough.

Up-thread, Manny wrote: "Materialism has run it's course."

I wrote: 'It occurs to me Boeree wrote sumthin' on this as well (that -- like piece I linked up-thread -- aligns with my own thinkin'). I'll have to hunt it down (or give you my own dreary synopsis).'

You’re all spared my dreary synopsis…

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/qualityrealism.html

henry quirk wrote:Up-thread, Manny wrote: "Materialism has run it's course."

I wrote: 'It occurs to me Boeree wrote sumthin' on this as well (that -- like piece I linked up-thread -- aligns with my own thinkin'). I'll have to hunt it down (or give you my own dreary synopsis).'

You’re all spared my dreary synopsis…

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/qualityrealism.html

You really should preface such stuff with a decent argument not expect us to read links that you didn't make because you are a little too lazy to justify your own points of view. Materialism has run its course how? Why and in what way?

I aint reading links, I want to know what you think. I really am not that interested in what some dreary hide bound pseudo intellectual posted who has been either burried in religion for 40 years or in his own biases or both. And I am sorry if it hurts to say that but philosophy is in Vivo not in prose from some numptie with a badge and a short haircut. Yeah I am emeritus professor at some university and I know it all; spare me the T-shirt you bought too, I don't care.

Maybe materialism has run its course in terms of consciousness maybe it hasn't, maybe you could explain how though instead of relying on dried up old academics who have been in the sun too long. Don't get me wrong acadaemia will give you the tools to think, but you have to use them for yourself by which I mean how to take the tools and make them work outside of the force fed environment which is the education system, if university education teaches you anything it is that ultimately it is useless if you don't think for yourself.

"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education."

George Bernard Shaw

Don't be that fool. George was right a lot of people come out of university spouting all sorts of agendas from all sorts of people, but you should not, come out of university with your own mind, not someone elses. I'll most certainly read your ideas on a forum, my time is precious though, and academic dry stuck in the past professors are all very well and no doubt they do a good job of filling peoples minds with scope if not their own thoughts, but I don't genuinely care what they think. What do you think, you are the one that is important, why do you think what you do, write me a post filled with your input..? Or don't meh I could not really care less either way.

"A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service: The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible."

Frederick W. Smith, CEO, Federal express.

Blaggard,

I never said "Materialism has run it's course.".

As for the link: it makes for an entertaining aside...read it, don't read it...I'm not carin' too much either way.

henry quirk wrote:Blaggard,

I never said "Materialism has run it's course.".

As for the link: it makes for an entertaining aside...read it, don't read it...I'm not carin' too much either way.

I get that now sorry busy multi tasking earlier was in and out; even so though who is going to read something like that? Who has that much time to read some dried up old hack. Sorry about that my bad.

How do you know he's a "dried up old hack"?

(He may be...just wanna know how 'you' know).

...and...

I imagine the same folks who have time to waste 'posting' -- if they like -- can waste some of that time 'reading'.

As I say: the link makes for an entertaining aside... (you, anyone, can) read it, (or) don't read it...I'm not carin' too much either way.

I don't but I don't have a lot of time atm, so if anyone wants to paraphrase on links by either posting relevant parts of it or explaining the argument, I am only to glad to consider reading them, just posting a link will lead me to believe it is not worth reading. Oh for lots of time, but tempis fugit.

In future though I may well read random links from "hacks" but I wouldn't count on it, my time is precious by which I mean no more precious than yours, so if you do put the time in to explain something, that precious gift I will reciprocate.

Maybe materialism has run its course in terms of consciousness

Oh, indeed it has. But also in regard to that whole collocation of items I listed earlier, such as morality, values, selfhood, perception, purpose, meaning, human rights...and so on. It's been able to do no credible work in these areas, and every time we try to use it in reference to them, it fails. Materialism seems incapable of describing them in any way that does not look compellingly reductional and stultifying. And yet all of these are concepts which most of us would intuitively say we have a strong instinctive belief, an ongoing practical engagement, and a significant dependency, both on the personal and the social levels.

As Materialists, we could try to convince ourselves we're wrong to worry about it. Morality is bunk, values are arbitrary, selfhood is an illusion, free will is a fake, purpose is impossible... and so on. Yet which one of us can really live as though these things were not realities? The disparity is, in fact, so great that I would say that no person since the beginning of the World has found it possible to live strictly and consistently as a Materialist.

If our intuitions on this are right, Materialism seems to be altogether missing out on important areas of human experience. At some point we have to say "enough," and accept that there is probably a fatal flaw in the paradigm. I'm just suggesting that now might be a good time, since Materialism is clearly going nowhere.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Maybe materialism has run its course in terms of consciousness

Oh, indeed it has. But also in regard to that whole collocation of items I listed earlier, such as morality, values, selfhood, perception, purpose, meaning, human rights...and so on. It's been able to do no credible work in these areas, and every time we try to use it in reference to them, it fails. Materialism seems incapable of describing them in any way that does not look compellingly reductional and stultifying. And yet all of these are concepts which most of us would intuitively say we have a strong instinctive belief, an ongoing practical engagement, and a significant dependency, both on the personal and the social levels.

As Materialists, we could try to convince ourselves we're wrong to worry about it. Morality is bunk, values are arbitrary, selfhood is an illusion, free will is a fake, purpose is impossible... and so on. Yet which one of us can really live as though these things were not realities? The disparity is, in fact, so great that I would say that no person since the beginning of the World has found it possible to live strictly and consistently as a Materialist.

If our intuitions on this are right, Materialism seems to be altogether missing out on important areas of human experience. At some point we have to say "enough," and accept that there is probably a fatal flaw in the paradigm. I'm just suggesting that now might be a good time, since Materialism is clearly going nowhere.

IC no offence but you talk the talk but do not walk the walk, your opinion is of course valid, your logic is of course not.

My advice start a thread where you explain exactly and in great detail how materialism will never work, has never worked and could not possibly work. Just saying it has failed because of x is about as usefull as me putting my finger up my ass and whistling dixie whilst staring at a circus strong man. Suffice to say you are of course just talking and not walking.

aiddon wrote:The argument has become bogged down in the merits or lack thereof of materialism, so I will rephrase the question that no one yet addressed: if scientific determinism holds, as in Newtonian physics, then if one decides to believe in free will does that make he/she a compatibilist?

If scientific determinism holds true (and I think everyone here would agree with this - otherwise throwing the ball in the air will result in a completely random outcome each time), then why is determinism in the case of human action utterly scoffed at? Whether we like it or not, the human body consists mainly of carbon and water - I know this is a lot for some to swallow, but unfortunately it is true: the human creature is nothing more than stuff. Disappointing, yes, but hey very refreshing in another sense, depending on your point of view. Hence we are formed of the same stuff as exists everywhere else in the universe. This begs the question, if we are truly different from every other sentient being, as was God's supposed design, then why are scarily similar to every other sentient being? Consciousness has evolved. But if one cannot subsrcibe to evolution, then the discussion on free will versus determinsim is very much redundant as neither side will concede ground.

Throwing the ball up in the air will not be deterministic because there will always be random differences in the ball/world system, i.e., no ball throw/drop will be identical you just don't notice it macroscopically but could verify it with careful measurement (down to quantum levels if necessary). Similarly, Newtonian or any science cannot be deterministic.

aiddon wrote:The argument has become bogged down in the merits or lack thereof of materialism, so I will rephrase the question that no one yet addressed: if scientific determinism holds, as in Newtonian physics, then if one decides to believe in free will does that make he/she a compatibilist?

Basically the answer to that would be,yes.

Basically the answer to that would be,yes.

Maybe not, though. Compatibilism has to be grounded in some explanation of the ultimate nature of reality -- i.e. is it Determined or Free, or some precise interplay of the two. If you're not superficially willing to speak of "freedom," but ultimately committed to Determinism, then you are not what is designated by the specific term "Compatibilist." We'll need to find a new word to describe the precise position you may actually hold.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Basically the answer to that would be,yes.

Maybe not, though. Compatibilism has to be grounded in some explanation of the ultimate nature of reality -- i.e. is it Determined or Free, or some precise interplay of the two. If you're not superficially willing to speak of "freedom," but ultimately committed to Determinism, then you are not what is designated by the specific term "Compatibilist." We'll need to find a new word to describe the precise position you may actually hold.

It is determined to God though, which was the original point of compatibilism before it became popular in some philosophy circles. I still think it sounds like apologetics even when atheist philosophers argue for it but meh... I believe if there is free will the only sensible freedom of will is the libertarian version, I am though agnostic currently on the issue. I am not entirely sure you can ever prove the libertarian version anyway, for example if time were replayed you could chose differently, which is essentially that position with some wrangling over particulars, a multirealisable future which is not deterministic in any ultimately real way although it may appear to be...

Robert Nozick puts forward an indeterministic theory of free will in Philosophical Explanations.[6]

When human beings become agents through reflexive self-awareness, they express their agency by having reasons for acting, to which they assign weights. Choosing the dimensions of one's identity is a special case, in which the assigning of weight to a dimension is partly self-constitutive. But all acting for reasons is constitutive of the self in a broader sense, namely, by its shaping one's character and personality in a manner analogous to the shaping that law undergoes through the precedent set by earlier court decisions. Just as a judge does not merely apply the law but to some degree makes it through judicial discretion, so too a person does not merely discover weights but assigns them; one not only weighs reasons but also weights them. Set in train is a process of building a framework for future decisions that we are tentatively committed to.

The lifelong process of self-definition in this broader sense is construed indeterministically by Nozick. The weighting is "up to us" in the sense that it is undetermined by antecedent causal factors, even though subsequent action is fully caused by the reasons one has accepted. He compares assigning weights in this deterministic sense to "the currently orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics", following von Neumann in understanding a quantum mechanical system as in a superposition or probability mixture of states, which changes continuously in accordance with quantum mechanical equations of motion and discontinuously via measurement or observation that "collapses the wave packet" from a superposition to a particular state. Analogously, a person before decision has reasons without fixed weights: he is in a superposition of weights. The process of decision reduces the superposition to a particular state that causes action."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertaria ... physics%29

I think I could get on board with these ideas for example. Although I must emphasise there is no evidence the mind works at a quantum level either individually in the case of synapse tubuoles or as a whole due to the decoherence issues in higher temperature systems. The fact DNA enzymes seem to act in a non deterministic manner to more efficiently find correct amino acids or proteins though does suggest an opening for this concept (citation: research at NASA's biology labs), since memory is encoded by DNA enzymes in the process of methylisation, which might explain why memory is seldom exact or without some "error" if not in replication per se. The mind may act causally but if it is based on an indeterministic process then it is at least some sort of libertarian free will. We could if time were rerun act differently.